Stanford Researchers Develop App To Treat & Track Autism

In the past few years, we have covered a whole host of autism iPhone apps for parents of autistic children. Standard researchers have a new app that can track and treat autism. GuessWhat is a game that encourages kids to act out different scenarios. As the team explains:

After parents or other adults open the app and sign in, they hold the phone up to their foreheads, screen facing out so a kid can see it. The screen then displays an image – pictures of emojis or people in various jobs or social situations – for the child to act out. The adult then tries to guess what the image represents.

While the child plays, the smartphone’s camera captures video of the child. The videos are analyzed using machine learning methods to figure out which behaviors distinguish those with autism. Doctors can use such an app to screen kids more easily. In the upcoming months, discrete trial learning and pivotal response training will be built into GuessWhat. More information about this interesting app is available here.